Why is plagiarism an ethical concern to higher education?

This is one of the few areas that academia can flext any muscles.

People are supposedly being educated through a combination of attending class, passing tests based on what they learned, and doing term papers or thesis based on what they learned.

Let's suppose you or I were to pay some other person to take the classes, take the tests, write the thesis ... then we get relevant diploma showing we are now qualified in whatever the university was teaching, when in reality we are ignorant.

The university does not want people going around waving a degree issued by the university to someone who knows nothing about the subject. Enough of that and the university will lose business.

Thus, they afe very concerned that when a test is taken, there is no cheating, and when some paper is turned in, it is really the work of the student who turned it in.

If they subsequently find out that there was cheating, or plagarism, they have the right to take back any grades issued to that student, and if the student graduated already, to take back the diploma or degree & say that it is now void.

It is cheating!!

Because it would embarrass the school if it ever got out that their teachers knew so little about their fields that they didn't recognize a stolen work submitted as original. They punish the cases they catch heavily to keep those who get away with it quiet.

because you are stealing someones intellectual property. Its not your words & thoughts being expressed.

The point of education is for people to learn.
People learn nothing if they plagiarize.

But more than that, most schools have a set ethical code that prohibits plagiarism. Students accept that ethical code by attending that school. Failing to abide that code is an ethical breach.

And for schools training professionals that will have to abide by an ethical code in their practice -- breaching ethics in school indicates a propensity to breach ethics later in practice.

it is good for us to exercise our innovative natures not our imitative natures. the right thing to do is seldom times the easiest thing.

Plagiarism (taking someone else's writing and republishing it as your own without giving them credit) is essentially theft of intellectual property.

The fact that the student learns less from the process and it creates an atmosphere of lawlessness within the school is important, but ultimately it comes down to good old intellectual property theft.

Because copying someone else's writing is just like cheating on an exam or assignment.

All you have to do is cite sources and use quotation marks and you would not get accused of plagerism.

Colleges do not only provide education, they credential people for positions later in life. This puts teachers in an interesting position, because their clients are not really students. They work for society at large. This being the case, they would be cheating society if they passed onto it students who don't make the grade.

Of course, this raises another interesting question. Why should students have to pay for their own education if the universities work for society at large?

Because plagiarism is cheating, and cheating is wrong. And if you plagiarize from a copyrighted source, you could be held liable in civil court.

because it's stealing someone's idea and making others believe it's your own creative thoughts, without crediting the author.